Waterfalls, a tramline and an exhilarating climb up a near-vertical staircase are all part of a Sunday walk for Danielle Wright in the Waitakere Ranges.
We head along bush tracks, past waterfalls worthy of much more than a fleeting glance and around the Upper Nihotupu Reservoir, chasing our children as they run as fast as they can to find out what's around the next corner.
Just as we near the Upper Nihotupu Dam, they hear the sound of Watercare's Rainforest Express and we're hustled over to take a look. We bypass the dam's viewing platform for now, which has the lonely figure of a man wearing a suit and clutching his black smartphone like a gun.
We're glad we're heading away from him and reach the bottom just in time to see half a dozen people huddled in a tiny train as it inches past us. A friendly Watercare worker encourages us to walk along the tramline to the dam, as long as we move over when the train comes past. Walking along the tracks, it's easy to contemplate what life was like back in the pioneering days. It's as if nothing has changed - the dramatic landscape and rickety track following the water pipeline is shrouded in a fine mist and very pretty, unless you look at the side of the track where the land slides straight down into the bush.
We hear the miniature train coming about 10 minutes before we have to move to one side and let it shunt past. We catch up with it again at the dam. The dam is impressive in its size and sheer vertical drop. Water gushes out of a pipe in a wall as we climb up the steep staircase to the top, everyone experiencing a bit of vertigo on the way.
